The fight over whether to make the small St. John Parish community of Garyville into a town is getting heated, as people who live there say they found racially offensive signs Friday morning, urging people to vote against the formation of an African American majority.

Near Johnnie Magee’s St. John the Baptist Parish home he found signs that read “Vote no for the incorporation of n----- town," and residents say sheriff's deputies picked them up in the early morning.

“People come and ask me to do stuff like this -- even young black kids will come and ask -- but no, man, I don't even write the word,” said Magee, an artist who paints signs.

"If you're going to vote no, vote no because of tax issues,” Magee said. “But if you're voting no because you don't want to see black people in control of their own community, that's the wrong reason to vote."

Residents of St. John Parish in Garyville, Mount Airy and the western portion of Reserve will vote Saturday whether to incorporate and become the town of Garyville.

It's an area that is 70 percent African American, and supporters argue that the area's representative on the parish council lives outside of their boundary.

“It's about local people standing up and saying we want to take control of our own destiny. We want to take control of our own community,” Geri Broussard Baloney, a supporter of incorporation, said.

These are just the latest signs that deciding whether to merge is dividing some residents here.

“Race never became an issue. This is a services issue and it's a tax issue on sales taxes and property taxes. Never should race have become an aspect of this and it's actually despicable that it has,” said Buddy Boe, a St. John Parish spokesman.

And emotions are at a boiling point.

Eyewitness News cameras caught a heated screaming match between neighbors in the area a few weeks earlier, where one resident accused another of being a racist.

Parish leaders got involved in the issue the day before the election, saying if Garyville incorporates, its tax coffers could end up as empty as a boarded up bank.

“It's the parish's position that this municipality's vote tomorrow doesn't affect the parish's income; that the residents would be paying additional taxes that the law prohibits the parish from sharing revenue,” said Boe.

“Any taxes that the parish collects for general purposes, that gets cut in half. Half goes to the town,” Baloney said.

But there are legal issues that can only be settled in court after voters decide whether they want to incorporate.

Meantime, residents that Eyewitness News talked to -- both black and white -- say the offensive signs don't speak for anyone in the community.

However, Magee says the signs show a problem that needs addressed in St. John parish.

“This is 2008 and we're still dealing with racism in St. John Parish,” said Magee.

The St. John Sheriff’s Office didn’t return phone calls about how many signs they found and removed.

Despite two lawsuits to try to stop the incorporation referendum, a judge ruled that voters could still head to the polls Saturday.